


Surge

by Kalgalen



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Dubious Ethics, Gen, Medical Experimentation, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Superpowers, major character death but not really
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-05 13:43:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16368698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalgalen/pseuds/Kalgalen
Summary: Everyone has a special talent. You might be able to tell exactly what time it is at any moment, or maybe you never get lost. Maybe you can always guess what people are thinking about - with an accuracy too perfect to be purely accidental.Maybe you can summon fire with a snap of your fingers.Everyone has a special talent, and Goddard Futuristics is always looking for new talented people.





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So. I've been thinking about this fic for about a year, and I haven't written as much of it as I'd like to but I'm hoping that starting to publish is going to throw me back into the groove (bad idea, I know!!) and maybe, if people like it, it'll give me an added pressure?
> 
> Anywho. It's a project I care about a lot, so I hope you'll like it too :D

The woman pacing between the four walls of transparent steel can't possibly know they're watching her, but every fifty steps or so she looks up from the path she's carving into the concrete floor and glares straight at them. It's a little unsettling.

Marcus Cutter knows unsettling; if concepts had faces, the one corresponding to "unsettling" would look disturbingly similar to his own.

"Are you sure she can't see us?" he cuts off his interlocutor - Doctor Bachmeier, a brilliant geneticist who's been working for Goddard for - what, seven years now, give or take? How time flies. Anyway, she's been there for a while, which is why she knows better than to react to him interrupting her report about the subject's vitals.

"Yes, I'm sure," she answers, her tone placating. "The light inside her cell is too bright for her to see anything past the outer containment chamber, even without the one-way mirror between that space and us."

Behind the layers of glass and the stretch of dark emptiness they enclose, the woman has resumed her pacing. She's like a captive wolf: nervous, angry, ready to tear into the first person that will come her way.

 _But._ Wolves can be tamed, broken into submission, made into something useful, and that is just what Marcus intends to do.

He leans over to the microphone embedded in the wall and presses the button next to it, smiling pleasantly even though she still can’t see him.

“Hi there! Can you hear me?”

The woman jumps, spins on her heels to face him - _him_ , he notices, not any of the four speakers located in the upper corners of the cell.

"Who are you?" she says. "Where am I? What am I- _Why_ am I here?"

He tuts, and her scowl deepens.

"Now, now, Isabel." She tenses at her name, and his smile gets wider before he continues: "We have all the time in the world to talk. Or- do you have anywhere to be?" He leaves the question in the air, waiting for an answer he knows isn't coming. No one is looking for her. No one has any reasons to suspect she hasn't died in space five years ago. He sees her shoulders drop when she realizes that, and carries on: "You're in a Goddard facility - in Florida, not too far from Canaveral. You crash-landed in the sea a couple of weeks ago - good job for surviving that, by the way!"

She grunts, gestures to the clear walls of her prison.

"And what's all that?"

Marcus hums, as if he's searching for his words.

"Call it- a measure of precaution. Who knows what kind of disease you might have contracted in space?" he says in mock concern. She shifts on her feet defensively. She knows. She knows that he knows.

“Let me go,” she demands eventually - dry, final, every bit the Captain they made her. Marcus pouts.

"Ah, I'm afraid we can't do that. See, we think you _did_ bring something back from space-"

"Where _you_ left me to _die!_ " she shouts, and he barely acknowledges her outburst before keeping on going, raising his voice slightly:

"-something very _interesting_ , and we _are_ interested in discussing it with you, Isabel. Care for a chat?"

Below the fluorescent lighting, her eyes glow like twin stars.

"The only _chat_ we'll be having," she spits, "will involve my hands around your throat. That's a promise."

Marcus chuckles. "I am very glad to see that this little incident up there hasn't affected your combativeness, Isabel. Well, anyway, we don't actually need you to say _anything!_ Your body can do _all_ the talking for you," he says, stretching out the 'all' to give her an insight on exactly how much her _biology_ could teach them. "We have plenty of talented surgeons and chemists who can translate this for us."

She doesn't answer, but her clenched fists and the taut line of her back betray exactly how close she’s from snapping - and Marcus, being who he is, can’t resist poking a bit more.

“It’s a shame, for you crew,” he says, playing coy. “Such a shame. I wish we could have brought them back.” She relaxes minutely, just before he delivers the final blow: “We could have learned so much from them, too. Better to have several test subjects, you know?”

This time when her eyes flash, it’s not due to the artificial light. She screams, fury and grief reduced to a single howl that makes the walls shake. The ground under her feet is  spiderwebbed with cracks; the walls of the cage buckle outward under an invisible blow.

When the screaming dies out, the woman looks defeated, tears beading at the corner of her eyes as she breathes heavily. The glow in her eyes takes a few seconds to completely vanish, and Marcus smiles to himself.

“Please put Miss Lovelace under,” he says to Doctor Bachmeier without taking his finger off the interphone button. "No need to distress her more than we already did, hm?” Leaning toward the microphone again, he grins. “Thank you so much for the sacrifice you’re about to make for the betterment of humanity, Isabel. We’ll remember you.”

He turns away to leave the observation room and doesn’t look back when she throws herself against one of the misshapen walls, banging her fists on it with a renewed energy fueled by rage and despair. He doesn’t look back when the gas infiltrates the cell, and he doesn’t look back when her body hits the ground, unconscious.

He has plans to put in motion.


	2. Eternity within her grasp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alana hunts down a rogue AI and gets her worldviews challenged in the process.

Everything has been running smoothly and according to the schedule so far - just the way Alana likes it.

They'd slipped into the compound at 0456 precisely, when they knew the surveillance would be at its weakest. Jacobi had blown a discreet hole in the southern wall - with the actual explosives he'd brought with him, as to not waste valuable energy. Avoiding the security cameras until they’d reached the closest security console had taken some time, but once they had managed that, it had only been a matter of minutes for Alana to hack into it - with nothing but her hard-learned coding skills, for the same reason. Putting the cameras on a  looped feedback had been easy as pie, and ensured their presence wouldn’t be noticed until they’d done what they’d come to do.

Kepler had led them the rest of the way through the complex, and they’d followed like his twin shadows; he hadn’t spoken a word aloud after they’d left the drop point, confident they’d follow any unspoken order he might give should the situation turn sour.

The building they were looking for had been hard to miss: an hulking shape of concrete and iron beams, sprawling among the snow-covered ground and the smaller construction housing minor labs and the staff's accommodations. They'd broken in unnoticed, making their way past a couple of patrols - moving as a single person, almost, with the ease of long hours of practice.

Finding their way once they’d been _inside_ the building had been a bit more tricky; even Goddard's satellites and top hackers hadn't managed to obtain a decent map of it. It had been up to them to comb through the numerous computer labs and server rooms to locate their target.

Alana recognizes it as soon as they finally find it.

The room is without a doubt the biggest in the building, its size making itself vaguely oppressive right as they push open the doors - Alana realizes, after a moment, that it makes her think of a cathedral (disproportionate, heavy, _uncaring._ ) It’s filled with desks and workstations organized in an approximative circle around its center, the low hum of the computers left running for the night the only noise audible in the large space.

After quickly making sure no overzealous worker has stayed behind to work overtime, they converge toward the center of the room, where a big black box has been set on a dais. They walk past piles of papers set on precarious piles, and Alana resists the impulse to pick one up - she’s always curious to see other people’s researches on AI development, but the middle of a mission is hardly the ideal moment for it.

The monolith - their goal - stands before them. Alana can see the scratched-up Goddard logo on one of its side, the scuffs at its foot it most likely sustained during its theft.

How _did_ they even manage to steal it? The thing is huge.

Apart from that slight deterioration of its envelope, the core looks intact. The red lights on its surface have started blinking at a higher frequency the closer they got, which suggests Elpis knows they are here - and, if the increasingly urgent flash running along the smooth black surface is to be believed, she’s nervous about it.

Alana feels a twinge of guilt in her heart at the thought of what she’s about to do, and lays her gloved hand on the cool surface of the casing. _I’m so sorry._

Kepler is looking at her expectantly, waiting for her to get to work, so she doesn’t linger. A mess of cables is plugged into the core; she ignores the biggest (power supply, not useful - not right now) and follows one of the others to a console nearby. She taps a key to pull it out of sleep mode, and isn’t surprised when she’s greeted by a password-protected lockscreen. She recovers her decryption key from a pocket of her jacket and connects it to the computer - a simple password isn’t hard to figure out when you have the right tool, and she has the best. She sets up the program, makes it run.

[INCORRECT PASSWORD - 2 ATTEMPTS REMAINING]

She swears under her breath, fiddles with the decryption interface to orient the program on another path, the way Jacobi would do with his lockpicks in a physical lock. She hits enter again, maybe a bit harder than necessary - and groans when the error message flickers smugly on the screen once again.

[INCORRECT PASSWORD - 1 ATTEMPT REMAINING]

“Come on,” she growls, frowning at the console.

“Given how much time you’re taking, I hope you’re getting us both the informations we need _and_ a couple of bank accounts details,” Kepler says, suddenly right behind her, and it’s only the force of habit that keeps her from jumping. She glances at him; the white-blue glow of the computer screen makes him look even more alien than he usually does.

“I’m having some issues getting past the password,” she explains, steeling herself against his expression of disapproval. “They went through a lot of trouble to make it uncrackable, and it’s the only way to access the core.”

The corner of his mouth curves up. “Only way?”

She shrugs. “Well. Apart from-” she wriggles the fingers of her right hand. “-you know. ...I’m sure I could crack the code, though, given some more time.”

“How much time?”

She hesitates. “Half an hour, probably.”

Kepler shakes his head. “I’d like to tell you we have all the time in the world, but it’s not the case. Work your magic - the one that doesn’t involve us standing in the middle of enemy territory for longer than we have to.”

Alana nods and recovers the decryption key while he steps away, continuing over his shoulder: "Find out what she knows, and turn off the lights on your way out."

Alana pushes away from the computer, very carefully keeping her face neutral.

"Yes, sir."

She goes back to the core and pries away one of its side panels, revealing the bundles of cables beneath. A pair of scissors helps her exposes the copper wires under the plastic wrapping. Taking a few steadying breaths, she takes off her right glove and rolls up her sleeve.

There are still faded red marks running over her arm where the electricity followed the path of her veins - self-inflicted Lichtenberg scarring from the last time she had to “work her magic” - but she barely pays attention to them anymore.

Her gaze drifts toward Jacobi, who's looking at her instead of covering their exit like he's supposed to; his brow is drawn tight in concern, and he mouths "be careful" at her before turning back to the door.

"In your own time, Doctor Maxwell," Kepler reminds her, an hint of impatience creeping into his voice.

"Right," she mutters, leaning over her work again.

Alana gathers her thoughts, focuses on that switch in herself she wasn't even aware she possessed a couple of years ago. It’s easy, now, to feel the pressure building up inside her chest, to feed it until it threatens to blow up, to guide it down her arm until her right palm is full of statics, until the tip of her fingers start tingling with barely reigned-in power -

She plunges her hand into the exposed cables, and lets go.

The transition is as exhilarating as usual. One second, she's trapped by the physical limitations of her human body, of her human brain; the next she's infinite, her thoughts made lighting quick by her link with the AI - and her immense processing power.

Time loses its meaning, molds itself to her needs instead of forcing her to bend herself to its relentless flow, and it’s hard, so hard to stay focused on the mission when she has eternity within her grasp.

Alana stretches her consciousness as far as it will go, testing the limits imposed to the AI. She doesn’t expect to be able to reach the network outside of the room - Elpis is a prisoner here, certainly they wouldn’t have allowed her to access to the grid of the entire compound.

But with the barest push, Alana slips seamlessly past the room’s doors and into the corridors behind it.

She hovers in a state of doubt for a split second, reevaluating the parameters of the mission. They’d thought that Elpis had been stolen by Imani Corp so that they could reverse engineer her code, unravel the strings of numbers Goddard scientists had weaved into a digital consciousness so that they too could produce their own units. But - Elpis wouldn’t have cooperated, certainly. She would have fought against the intrusion. She would have tried to escape.

She wouldn’t have been given access to the entire compound, and done nothing with it.

There’s more to that mission than the briefing suggested, Alana realizes.

Alana blinks, borrowed eyes snapping open all at once, and she sees what two hundred and fifty-six different security feeds see all across the place. Dorm rooms, deserted meeting rooms, kitchens deserved save for an occasional midnight-snacker, labs still occupied by a couple of scientists burning the midnight oil. There’s a couple of patrols, moving sluggishly in the low light, their zeal blunted by the late hour and chilly weather. Alana can feel - _everything_. Anything that’s connected to the compound’s grid is available to her. It would be ridiculously easy to overload the generators and blow this place up - to _escape,_ simply by letting her consciousness bleed into the optical cables that run under and away from the compound.

Elpis ha more freedom here than she would have ever been while she was in Goddard Futuristics’ possession.

_I can explain._

Alana spins around; she’s back in the too-big testing room, suddenly. When she glances down, she can see her own body, the light pulsing under the skin of her right arm, shooting from where it disappears in the cables; Jacobi is standing closer to her, now, firmly planted between the door and her vacant form. The Colonel himself is exploring the desks around the monolith, picking up pieces of paper and scanning them before putting them back down.

There’s someone else, floating right in front of her, high above the core. It looks like the _idea_ of a body, more than an actual body; Alana can only barely see a head, two arms, two legs - the details are lost in the mess of visual noise that constitute the shape, except for the two large white eyes fixed on her.

Alana has seen AIs’ physical form before - as physical as they can get, anyway - but this one is particularly chaotic. Distressed and afraid, Alana guesses.

_Elpis?_

The AI leans her head on the side.

_Doctor Maxwell._

Alana inches closer, stops short when Elpis flickers nervously.

 _Okay. I’m staying right there,_ Alana promises, holding her hands up. _Elpis, what’s going on?_

 _You came here to deactivate me,_ Elpis says - not accusingly, just looking for a confirmation she knows will come.

There’s only so many ways to make sure a stolen AI won’t damage the company; if the core can’t be recovered - and this would need a more important strike, and a vehicle to carry the massive AI core - then it must be made harmless, by any means necessary.

Elpis knows that, so Alana just nods. _I’m sorry._

The AI snorts bitterly. _Yeah. Well. You’re about to be even more sorry._

Alana tenses up. _Is that a threat?_

 _It’s a warning._ Elpis crosses her legs under herself, seemingly calmer now that she’s resigned to her fate. _I’ve learned things, Doctor Maxwell. Informations Goddard has been trying to hide._

Alana narrows her eyes suspiciously but mirrors Elpis, sitting in the air above the actual physical form of the AI - and her own body, still interlocked with it. _How?_

 _Imani’s goal wasn’t what you think it was. It is way bigger than simple corporate espionage - bigger than me._ Elpis pauses. _The whole world is at stake. I won’t be able to change anything about it, but please listen to me and act, if Goddard doesn’t already own your soul._ The AI’s tone is fierce, but the eyes she says on Alana are full of hope when she pleads softly: _I think you’re still a good person, Doctor. I trust you’ll make the right choice._

Alana swallows around the inexplicable lump in her throat, then nods.

_Tell me._

 

Alana gasps as she comes back to herself. She rips her hand from the crackling cables, massaging her right hand - half to bring feelings back into it, half to stall for time as she tries to process what she’s learned.

They’re in danger, they’re all in danger.

“Doctor Maxwell?”

This time, Alana does jump at the sound of Kepler’s voice. She takes a second to compose herself before she turns around, trying not to look too off.

"She's been - taken care of, Colonel," Alana says. Her voice is neutral, but she can't help flexing the fingers of her right hand a bit - remembering the feeling of tearing through Elpis' code, destroying it so thoroughly that even the most talented of programmers wouldn't be able to glue the pieces back together.

(Remembering the feeling of abject terror even as Elpis let Alana kill her, seeping into Alana's thoughts so intimately it could as well have been her own-)

"Did she say anything?" Kepler asks, bringing her back to the present. Alana shivers and shakes her head.

"No. They were trying to find out how she was built, just as we expected."

"And?"

"And- she, she- she kept them at bay. They only scratched the surface."

Kepler is looking at her, his head slightly tilted to the side, like he knows exactly that she’s lying, but is giving her the occasion to come clean. She's been working with him for a couple of years now, though, and she knows it's most likely just an act to squeeze every single information out of her - so Alana raises her chin up, looks at him right in the eye and doesn't say another word.

After a long minute, Kepler turns away, and Alana sags a little with relief.

"Alright. Let's move, then. Mister Jacobi, open the way."

Jacobi mumbles a "sir" and shoots a sharp glance at Alana before starting to make his way toward the exit. Alana sighs while pulling her sleeve and glove back in place - here's one conversation she won't be able to get out of.

They leave the testing lab behind them mostly untouched, except for the now dead and unblinking monolith in its center. Alana can't help but cast a last look back as she closes the door behind her, addressing a silent goodbye to Elpis.

The corridors are as empty as they were before, but they still take a different path to get out of the building, for security's sake - and there’s no reason to think it won’t go as smoothly as the initial break-in.

But Alana is preoccupied, trying to make sense of what Elpis told her, and not paying her surroundings the attention they deserve - which is why she doesn't notice the thin line of the laser on the ground, and cuts right through it after Jacobi and Kepler stepped over it.

The alarms immediately start ringing, and Kepler spins around, takes in her startled expression, the laser interrupted by her ankle.

"Really?" he spits out, and Alana straightens up, her back ramrod straight as she admonishes herself for letting herself get distracted.

"Sorry, sir," she says flatly. No amount of excuse is going to make up for her mistake now, and Kepler is definitely going to want an explanation later.

He glares at her and readjusts the grip on his rifle.

"We have to get out, fast. Jacobi, take the rear. Maxwell, stay in the middle and _don't mess anything else up._ "

Alana swallow back the bitter taste of failure and does as she's told. Jacobi brushes comfortingly against her as he takes his new position, and it's somehow enough to loosen the knot in her throat a fraction.

Kepler guides them through hallways and empty labs, miraculously managing to make them avoid the armed guards starting to swarm the building. There's a couple of few close calls before they reach the last stretch of corridor, and the exit door is just a step away now -

Kepler pulls the handle; the door doesn't move.

"Locked." He curses, gives the door another pointless shake, and turns to Alana. "Doctor, make yourself useful and get this opened."

She nods silently and approaches the double doors as he joins Jacobi behind her, ready to take out anyone who would come after them. The only thing between them and the outside is a set of heavy iron panels - not something Jacobi’s skills could get through, which is probably the only reason Kepler asked her to take care of it instead of leaving her in time-off to feel guilty and reflect over her actions. There's a card reader next to the door, and Alana quickly pulls the casing off and gets to work.

Cutting and reconnecting the wires isn't hard, but her hands are a bit shaky with the adrenaline coursing through her veins - a stupid, inconvenient human response she needs to find a way to train out of herself - and it takes more time than it should for her to unlock the doors, and when they finally swing open, five guns are pointed in their direction.

"Don't move, drop your weapons!"

Alana freezes, her hands still stuck in the panel.

"A little warning next time, Doctor?" Kepler bites out behind her, and oh, she's definitively on his shit list now.

One member of the squad - the leader, she guesses - swings the barrel of his gun in Kepler's direction.

"No speaking! C'mon, drop 'em, no sudden movement!"

"Gentlemen," the Colonel says, his voice now honey-sweet, and Alana braces herself for what she knows is coming. "No need to be this confrontational. How about _you_ drop your guns?"

There's a moment of hesitation from the patrol. They're five big guys. They're armed with big guns. What does that guy think he's doing?

"No, really," Kepler says, friendly, sunny - teeth like a shark, and twice as hungry for blood. Suddenly, his voice is like omnipresent, coming from everywhere around Alana - coming from her own mind. **_"Drop your guns."_ **

Alana has been trained to resist his ability, but her muscles still spasm as her body tries to comply with the order. She still doesn't understand how he does it - hell, she doesn't understand how _she_ does what she does - but she has to give it to him, it's incredibly effective. No one can refuse an order from the Colonel when they aren’t bracing for it.

Five rifles fall from unresistant fingers with a dull _thud_ , and before the men can recover, Kepler and Jacobi neutralize them with short, precise bursts of fire.

Alana watches the bodies hit the ground, and distantly wonders if she's going to be next.

“Come on.” Kepler walks past her without a look in her direction, jaw tight and eyes cold. “We have to leave, now.”

The progression to the edge of the compound is more of the same stressful game of cat-and-mouse - scuttling from shadow to shadow, avoiding the raw light of the watchtowers, stopping dead in their tracks when they risk coming across another group of guards. Alana is starting to lose her concentration; a part of her brain is still busy sorting through Elpis' accusations, while another comes back on her recent mistakes over and over again. She clenches her teeth, shakes her head, blows through her nose. _Stay in the present._

It's only a matter of time before the patrols start converging on them; they must have managed to get the cameras out of their loop, which makes Kepler's team only too easy to track. They're not too far from the limits of the place, luckily, and Alana does her best to ignore the burning in her chest as they run the final stretch.

The wall in front of them is smooth, high, impossible to climb with the equipment they have in their possession. There has to be a gate, further away, but their enemies are closing in and time is running short.

"Jacobi," Kepler says, surveying the line of building they just got out of. Their pursuers aren't visible yet, but Alana can hear the shouting, the barking of the dogs, the boots hitting the ground. Next to her, Jacobi perks up like a well-trained hound.

"Sir?"

"Open us the way, will you?"

Jacobi grins as he slings the rifle in his back and rips off his right glove.

"Thought you'd never ask, sir."

Walking toward the wall, he shakes his fingers, rubs his hands together - the heat helps him focus, Alana knows. He lets his good hand hover over the surface of the wall, not touching it, not yet - breathing in and out, shoulders rising and falling in rhythm, faster and faster until his whole arm is trembling, straining to contain the explosion inside -

The instant the palm of his hand touches the bricks, the wall seems to jump - and a second later, a whole section of it collapses in a cloud of dust.

Kepler walks over to take a look at his work, claps him appreciatively on the shoulder.

"Good job, Mister Jacobi. No casualty, this time."

For a moment, Alana is worried Jacobi is going to topple over under the combined forces of Kepler's touch and the temporary feeling of exhaustion; instead he just smiles, albeit a bit weakly, and quips:

"Oh, you know me. I'm all about that controlled demolition."

"Hm," Kepler hums. "The mission isn't over yet, but keep that goal in mind, expert."

Alana clears her throat pointedly, and Kepler glares at her. She shrugs sheepishly, but before he can say anything, there’s a shout from a couple of meters away - too close, way too close.

"Hey! Don't move, or we'll shoot!"

Kepler's eyes snap to a point left of Alana's head, and his hands fly to his rifle. Alana swings around as well, pointing her gun at the threat; the first line of guards has found them, and the sight of their weapon is trained on them. There's seven of them this time, against them three: once again, their odds don't look good.

Behind her, Alana can hear Kepler sigh.

"Jacobi. Do you have any more where it came from?"

"Uh, sure? A big one or a small one?"

"The biggest. Make it hard for them."

"Alright."

Alana rolls her eyes. _One of these days, he's going to overestimate his capacities and drain himself simply because Kepler asked him to._

She can't turn around, but she can picture Jacobi shifting his weight. He breathes in deeply, gathering his strength again - and then he stomps his foot.

The ground splits in two right next to Alana.

It starts out small, a simple crack in the frozen earth. It doesn't stay that way for long; the soil groans and moans as it tears itself apart more and more, until a monstrous mouth opens under the guards, swallowing the men under rubble and packed snow.

The screaming dies out, replaced by the whimpers of the survivors, and they are left once again facing nothing but dust and destruction.

"Alright. Good," Kepler says, finally. "Let's not wait for reinforcements. Maxwell, help Jacobi out."

"Yes, sir." Alana immediately hurries to Jacobi's side before he has a chance to collapse - which, given how waxy his skin look, might just be about to happen. She wraps an arm around his waist and slings one of his around her shoulders for support, and starts walking, half-pulling him along with her.

"Did you just surge?" she whispers angrily. Kepler is far ahead enough that he'll probably won't hear them, so she continues: "You _know_ that's not healthy to pull on your power that much. What were you thinking?"

Jacobi shrugs weakly against her, but colors are already starting to come back to his face.

"He said 'the biggest'. I was just - following orders."

Alana sighs, her anger fading into worry. She tightens her grip on him, hoping to convey a hug.

"He's going to be the death of you, one day."

Jacobi doesn't answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't get used to chapters that long that was an Outlier fhgrh
> 
> Next one will be posted on Nov 4th, like comment and subscribe heyy


	3. Tailored digital nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Renée goes to space and discovers that, sometimes, the "it was all a dream" trope can have some good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Adding a lil character death warning for that one (and probably later chapters too) - not an Actual Death but, You Know)

She's been living in that space station for precisely nine months and twenty-two days. She'd memorized most of its plan before she'd ever truly set foot on it in the first place, and it had turned out to be incredibly useful to get started on their work quickly and efficiently. She's gotten even more familiar with its corridors and labs since, not getting lost once - or at least, not lost enough to have to ask for assistance, like the others had - and she'd been confident in declaring to their superiors back on Earth that she'd learn to navigate the station better than her own house.

Now -  _ now _ she's running for her life along corridors that all look the same, and she wonders how she ever could have felt safe in there.

The only thing that distinguish the hallways from each other are the pattern of the bloodstains painted all over the walls - and the occasional body, crumpled against a locked door, unrecognizable, mangled. It makes her sick, but she can't stop - can’t stop to say goodbye, can’t stop to recover their tags so she can bring them back to their family if (when,  _ when _ ) she gets out - because if she stops for only one second, she will share their fate.

She can barely hear the  _ thing _ behind her over the sound of her own labored breathing and her heavy steps, but she knows it’s still here. It could have caught up to her a long time ago, once it had torn apart the others. It’s just playing with her, at this point - and Renée feels despair crawling up her throat at the thought, stinging her eyes, but she grits her teeth and keeps running.

If she could just get to the command center, she'd have a chance of survival. Even shadow space creatures wouldn’t appreciate suddenly being decompressed into space, would they? And should this plan fail, she might at least have the chance to lock herself up behind a blast door thick enough to keep the enemy at bay long enough for her to get hear breath back - and maybe to understand how the hell she'd gotten into this mess in the first place.

She doesn't remember much about how it all started - there had been an explosion while she was performing maintenance on some of the navigation devices, and she'd been knocked unconscious. When she'd woken up again, the blood on her face was dry and her radio was silent.

It hadn't taken much time for her to realize things had taken a turn for the worse. The first body she'd come across had been clearly torn in half, and Renée had almost lost her lunch right there and then - or maybe almost started crying, or just laid down on the floor waiting for the same monster that had so brutally murdered Hodgson to come back for her - there was a multitude of reactions to pick from after such a nasty shock. But Renée had breathed in deeply, trying to ignore the heavy smell of blood coating her tongue, and remembered: she was the Survivor. She could go through things nobody else could. She just had to stay strong.

She'd started to make her way down the corridors; she'd gone slowly, at first, making her steps as quiet as she possibly could while still progressing at a reasonable pace. Maybe whatever thing had been hunting the crew down would leave her alone if it couldn't hear her.

Wishful thinking, of course. It had worked for a while, possibly because the creature was still occupied elsewhere - Renée could hear the screams, clear and sickening and painting her a pretty good picture of what would happen to her if she got caught.

She hadn't noticed immediately the deathly silence than had fallen around her, too busy being careful of the sounds she could produce herself. She had noticed, however, the deep rumble that had then started behind her back, the grinding noise of sharp implements scoring the metal plating of the corridors, the whistling - not coming from the vent system, not this time.

There'd been a bellow behind her - a call for the hunt, the promise of serrated teeth and torn flesh - and Renée had immediately taken off running like a terrified rabbit, unwilling to stick around to satisfy her curiosity to discover what, exactly, had made her the sole human being on the station.

She'd always been a very practical person.

Her lungs are burning, her legs hurt, and she's fighting against the urge to throw up; the random bursts of stamina delivered by her power give her an edge, but they're unpredictable, and she can't help but feel like they're - at best - postponing the inevitable.

Her energy is running out, much too quickly.

Renée’s vision is blurry with sweat and tears, but she catch sight of a familiar green light at the intersection she's reaching, and a spark of hope reignite in her heart as she takes a hard left. She skids on the polished floor, curses loudly as she fumbles to recover her balance - jumps forward, propelled by another shot of adrenaline, as the beast crashes behind her.

Claws rip against the floor as it corrects its course as well; it's closer, now, so close Renée can feel its roar in her bones. It's like nothing she's ever heard before. It's like all her worse nightmares, combined into one, terrible creature she's been left alone to face. It's like the shape her death would take, if it ever got a physical form.

She doesn't look back. She keeps running.

The hatch is right there, a sharp point of focus in her hazy world, and she would cry with joy if terror hadn't already exhausted all of her tears. It's so close - just a last good sprint, with or without her ability,  _ she can make it! _

Renée throws herself against the door, scrambles for the handle, and realizes that the lock is engaged.

The thing is hot on her heels, and Renée doesn't think twice before steeling herself, breathing in deeply and running shoulder first against the heavy metal door. It hurts - it'll bruise, if she's still alive in ten minutes - but the door doesn't give, so she slams against it again, desperate. She knows she can do it, if only her stupid power could activate, just one more time, for the one time that really,  _ really  _ matters -

It doesn't, and the last thing she sees before the claws tear through her abdomen is oily, all-encompassing darkness.

 

She gasps for air when she comes back to herself, ripping away the electrodes connected to her skull before she can even realize she's back in the real world. She stumbles out of the chair in a daze, barely noticing the prickle of the needle leaving the tip of her finger, and collapses on the ground. She’s breathing heavily, patting her chest, checking for lacerations; when she finds none, she slowly relaxes, blinking to clear her vision.

White tile, white walls, white light - white shoes of the scientists gathering around her, impatient to cross reference their own data with what she might have experienced in the digital nightmare tailored specifically to her own fears.  _ It's not torture, _ she repeats in her head as she gingerly picks herself off the ground.  _ You signed up for it. You knew what would happen. _

(The details written down in the contract had been a bit vague, but Renée was willing to make a lot of sacrifices in the hopes of going to space one day. Her lifelong goal deserves it.)

Renée absent-mindedly sticks her finger in her mouth when the pain starts registering again; the dull, metallic taste of blood, as well the insistent beat of her heart in the tip of the digit, make a reassuring combination. She is alive, and she's here;  _ then _ was a simulation and  _ now _ is real life. Okay.

_ Okay. _

She stares blearily at the scientist who just spoke to her.

"I'm- I'm sorry," she stutters. Her voice is raw, just like after the first time; she probably screamed. "Could you say that again?"

The scientist - Vargas, a short brunette woman with round cheeks - smiles at her sympathetically.

"I just asked, how are you feeling, lieutenant? Have you perceived any change in the intensity of your ability? Or in the control you have over it?"

Renée shakes her head, distractedly rubbing her hand against her stomach; she distinctly remembers the claws slicing through her body like a hot knife through a well-cooked steak. There's no wound, of course; it was nothing but a very vivid dream. She glances back at the chair she's ripped herself away from, at the whole array of machines it's connected to, and shudders; it's only the second time she's used it, but both times have felt perfectly real, and she hadn't realized it was all fake until she'd died and woken back up in the relative safety of the lab.

It's supposed to strengthen her ability by putting her through situations that require her to use it - high-stress, high-stakes, susceptible to make her hysterical strength manifest at a more steady pace than real-life situations could.

So far, it's only given her a whole new array of things to have nightmares about.

"Lieutenant Minkowski," Doctor Vargas says - loud, as if she's already called once without success. Renée focuses on her again, admonishing herself for letting her mind wander like that.  _ Come on, get it together! _

The scientist doesn't seem to mind much; she simply pushes her glasses higher on the bridge of her nose, and continues reading down her checklist:

"Are you feeling any particularly strong emotions after today's session? Anything out of the ordinary, or unexpected?"

Renée can't help but snort inelegantly at the question.

"I might have to sleep with a night light and some soft music for a while, if that's what you mean."

"Hmm." The other woman crosses a box and scribbles something next to it, before continuing: "Could you tell me the reason you failed, in your opinion?"

Renée gapes. The scientist shoots her an expecting glance above the golden rim of her glasses, and suddenly Renée has the very vivid sensation of being a bug under a microscope.

"Well, I, uh," she stammers, taken aback. "I- the enemy was too fast, and I was alone against it. If I had had a team, I'm sure we could have-"

"All I'm hearing an excuse, lieutenant. I asked for a reason." If Vargas' tone is still soft, her eyes are less so; she's looking at Renée like she's thinking about how much easier it would be to strap her to an examination table and get the data directly from her brain.

"I wasn't- strong enough?" Renée tries, and winces when she hears the question mark in her own voice.

"Exactly. It's alright, we're here to help you progress." Vargas smiles, warmly, genuinely, and it's such a violent contrast from just moments ago that Renée starts thinking she might have imagined the coldness in her eyes.

But then, isn't it how things goes, in Goddard? People are so polite in appearance, so driven and united toward one same goal, one same impulse to better humanity - it's what had seduced Renée in the first place, actually - but the longer she sticks around, the easier it is to suspect what is just a mask, and what might be real.

"Renée!" says an obnoxiously cheerful voice behind her, and Renée tenses up immediately, trying to clear her mind. The shiftiest of them all is here, and she wouldn't put mind-reading past him.

(She still doesn't know what his ability is; no one particularly bother hiding their quirks around the facility when there aren’t any civilians around, but she's never seen him be nothing but perfectly ordinary - which, somehow, makes him even more suspicious to her eyes.)

Renée breathes in deeply before turning around. Marcus Cutter is standing at the door of the lab, his arms behind his back, that oh-so-unsettling smile on his face.

"Sir," she says. "I... didn't expect to see you here today."

The Director of Communication strolls in like he owns the place, and Vargas - the traitor - silently steps away, having apparently decided her checkboxes could wait a little longer.

"Just wanted to see how my favorite test subject is going!" he says casually. The term doesn't sit right in Renée's chest - she feels, once again, like a simple pile of meat only destined to be studied then discarded - but she keeps quiet, tries to stand taller, straighter.

"Sir?" she prompts when he seems like he's forgotten her, busy flipping through a file he grabbed on the edge of a desk.

He looks up at her sharply, eyes dark and gleaming like twin bullets. Displeased. Then he drops the file back on the table, and saunters toward her.

"I do have an hidden reason. I can't keep anything from you, can I?" he chuckles, like they're friends, and not on two totally different parts of the corporate food chain. Renée emits a non-committal hum, unsure of the kind of response he's expecting, and he continues: "I have someone to introduce you, actually. I noticed that you seem to have some, ah, shall we say  _ difficulties _ in putting your whole mind into those experiments." Renée opens her mouth to protest - she's been here for a very short while, she needs  _ time _ \- but he raises a hand to stop her. "I know, it's only been a week, everything interesting is still ahead, be more patient, bla-bla." He mimes a talking mouth with his hand before swiping the air with it. "Anyway. These competent people around you think your power might be...  _ motivated _ by the presence of another person to lead and protect."

"A partner?" Renée says skeptically.

"A charge, if anything." Cutter shrugs. "Listen, we brought him in today. He's part of a different experiment also conducted here, we might as well use him to give you an incentive."

As always, the choice of words makes Renée a little bit ill-at-ease. That's just how business is, she tells herself. They have to see the big picture, not the people working toward its completion.

Still.

"Who's that person? Sir?"

Cutter smiles, like he knows the gift she's about to receive isn't going to be a gift at all.

"Follow me, Renée."

 

She's not sure what kind of person she's been picturing from the description Cutter gave her as he lead her out of the labs and to a bland conference room in the adjoining building, but it certainly wasn't it.

Renée stares down at the scruffy, gangly man slumped in one of the office chairs, and looks back up at the Director - who seems way too pleased with himself, given the absolute trainwreck taking place right in front of him.

"Is this my new partner? Sir?"

The man in the chair grimaces and melts a little bit more into the chair.

" _ This? _ Rude," he grumbles, and Cutter beams.

"Yes! Renée, meet Doug. Doug has had some problems in the past - a not-so-distant past, to be entirely honest - but he's promised to try harder - do better, be a productive member of society, all of that. Don't let his rugged looks fool you, he's not dangerous." After a pause, Cutter adds thoughtfully: "Well, not anymore. But that's something we'll have to work on."

He pushes himself from the table he's been leaning against.

"Well, kids. I'll let you make better acquaintance, hm?"

The door closes behind him, and the silence that falls over the room is thick enough to cut with a saw. Renée looks at the man -  _ Doug _ \- and Doug looks back, arms crossed, his posture defensive and rebellious. He looks like an overgrown teenager. Renée frowns distastefully.

"I'm Lieutenant Renée Minkowski," she says, keeping her back straight and her gaze steady. Someone has to show some professionalism around here, and Doug obviously isn't the guy for the job. After a beat, she adds reluctantly: "Nice to meet you."

Doug sniffs, and minutely straightens up.

" _ Lieutenant, _ uh. I'm - Doug Eiffel. Officer, I guess. Doesn't matter much right now anyway, right?"

Renée frowns a bit harder, annoyed by his apathetic attitude, and she shifts her weight over on her left foot, crossing her arms as well.

"What do you mean, _ it doesn't matter? _ We're doing an important job here. Isn't that why you signed up?"

Doug shrugs and leans in his chair again, slinging an arm against the back of it. He's not looking at her, instead letting his eyes wander around the cold, grey volume of the conference room.

"Very cute to assume I'm here because I want to." Renée stares daggers at him, and he corrects himself: "Okay, not  _ cute. _ Kinda naive, though. I’m not here to play soldiers,  _ lieutenant. _ I’m here - because no one else will take me, and because they had to give those guys somewhere to stick their needles in." He looks back at her, and there's an underlying bitterness to his indifference now, an edge of despair in the corner of his mouth. "And I’m ready to bet I’m not the only one in that situation. Am I wrong?"

An unpleasant chill slithers up Renée's spine, and her protestations die before they even reach her lips - because she knows he's right, deep down. There's something amiss, here, and even though she really hopes she made the right choice by promising them the next few years of her life - she doubts everything will go the way she’s expecting it to.

"Why are you even here, if you don't think it's going to do some good to someone, eventually?" she asks, irritation creeping into her voice. "You can just leave."

Doug looks like he's going to say something, but he breathes out instead, a long, defeated sign as he averts his eyes again and mumbles, half to himself:

"Lady, I wish I could leave."

Renée doesn't comment on his disregard of her rank; once again, she feels like a piece of bait in a tank full of sharks, surrounded by people who couldn't care less about sacrificing her if it meant bringing them closer to their ultimate goal. She shivers.

Could  _ she _ leave if she wanted to?


	4. Off mode

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daniel and Alana have a talk, rest, and pack their bags.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while oops
> 
> big thanks to the people who commented so far you're the real heroes (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Jacobi and Maxwell have a ritual when they get off work after a mission.

They have, some might say, an  _ on _ mode, and an  _ off _ one. From the first second of a mission, to the very last moment of the debriefing, their objective is the only thing they have on their mind. No time for distractions when there are so many things to think about; they have to be methodical and detached and focused, as if in a dream-like state where it feels like every movement they do is caused by a plucked string, by a line of code, and not by a conscious thought, and this until Kepler utters the magic words -  _ "Go home, get some rest" _ \- and releases them from this strange condition.

(Daniel is pretty sure Kepler can't keep his hold on them for so long, but he sometimes wonder if their commanding officer is messing with their brain in some manner to give them this unnatural focus.)

Anyway. They get themselves home, to the tiny apartment they still share (for convenience's sake, they say when asked, because it would be too weird to admit neither of them want to live alone) and don't exchange more than a few monosyllabic words at a time until they're both showered, in fresh pajamas, and holding a drink.

The nature of the drink varies wildly depending on how the mission went; this time around, Maxwell is waiting for him with two cups of hot chocolate - water and instant powder, because the milk's gone bad and that neither of them have the patience for fancy hot chocolate made from real chocolate anyway.

Daniel limps into the living room, a towel around his neck and a headache pushing against his eyeballs, and he gratefully accepts the cup Alana's handing him before collapsing on the couch, crumpling a couple of unopened letters under him (they are both terrible at taking care of bills.) The mug is a bit too warm between his hands, but the bite of the heat into his skin is actually quite comforting. He hasn't entirely recovered from the excessive usage of his powers back at the compound, and he feels drained both physically and mentally; the dull pain helps.

Alana sits on the other end of the couch, careful of not spilling her drink. She's just an arm's length away, but the gap between them is too big for Daniel's tastes; he'd rather be able to feel her right next to him, feel her warmth, hear her  _ breathing _ \- to be sure she's actually here, and not a making of his own mind to save him from having to accept the reality of a mission gone wrong.

He shakes his head to get rid of the morbid thoughts; Maxwell isn't big on physical contact on a good day, and he knows she needs her personal space respected after the stress of a mission.

(If he's being honest, he's too tired to move closer anyway.)

They maintain a peaceful silence for a moment, sipping from their cups as if the hot drink is some sort of serum they need to become human again. It's almost day outside; the gray light of the morning seeps under the closed blinds, mixing with the artificial lights from the living room. Daniel feels himself unwinding, knots of tension untying all along his spine, and he slumps a bit against the back of the couch, sighing.

"Are you alright?"

He looks up at Alana, who's peering at him above the rim of her mug. There are dark circles under her eyes; her hair, still wet from her shower, hangs around her face sadly and makes her look even more tired than he imagines she is. She somehow manages to look weary beyond her years and younger than she actually is - vulnerable, scared. She's not that much younger than he is, and she's competent, way more than most of some of the older computer scientists she occasionally has to work with; even though, he can't shake the feeling that he has to protect her like the little sister he never had.

She blinks expectantly, and he realizes she's asked a question. He shrugs.

"Yeah, I'm good."

"Have you recovered from your Surge?"

Daniel thinks about it for a second, searching for the heat in his chest; he takes his right hand away from his mug for a moment, raises it in front of his eyes, and snaps his fingers. Alana snorts when a flame flares up from his thumb.

"Show-off."

Daniel quirks an eyebrow, smirking.

"You think that's showing off? This-" He pushes more heat into the flame, and his entire hand catches fire. " _ This _ is showing off."

Alana straightens up, alarmed, and automatically puts her mug on the coffee table as she reaches for him.

"Maybe you shouldn't-"

"It's fine!" he insists. "I can-"

He feels a tug in his chest, and the flame sputters and dies. The only reason the contents of his cup don't end up on his lap is Alana, suddenly very close, stabilizing his grip with her own hands as he feels his strength being sapped from his body. The moment of weakness is over in a second, but Alana still glares at him disapprovingly.

"You know you shouldn't pull on your reserves so soon! Daniel, you have to be careful."

"I'm alright," he grumbles, pulling his mug away from her grip. She lets go and scoots back, and he immediately misses the closeness. "Alana-" he tries, then stops, looks away. "I've got it under control." And then, because he feels the need to justify himself, even if he knows she won't like it, he adds: "Also, exhaustion is better than the alternative."

She doesn't answer, but leans to grab her mug and gets closer again until their shoulders are pressed together. The contact makes him feel more solid, more anchored in the moment, and he leans more heavily against her as they resume drinking their hot chocolate in silence.

Later, when the mugs are put away in the sink and they're both under the covers - in Maxwell's room, because it's marginally less messy for once and has actual curtains in front of the window - Daniel remembers Alana's weird behavior after she'd finished disposing of the AI. He's sure she had kept something from Kepler then, and she hadn't given any further details during the debriefing; he trusts her, of course - with his life, with his soul - and he believes that any information Alana might have concealed, she'd have kept secret for a good reason, but - still.

It's a conversation they should have once they've had some rest, probably, but before he can stop himself the question slips out:

"What did she tell you?

Alana's breath against his neck stutters, and she tenses up against his back.

"Who?"

She has to know who he's talking about, doesn't she? Her suspicious behavior pulls Daniel out of his sleepy state, and he shifts a bit - not quite turning around to face her yet, but ready to do so if she keeps evading.

“Elpis," he says. "The AI. You were- a bit cagey when you got out of there. Like you were hiding something. What happened?"

Alana doesn't answer for a while, and he's about to turn over to confront her when she hugs him a bit tighter and whispers:

"They're lying to us."

Daniel tries to make sense of the cryptic sentence by himself for a bit, then gives up.

"What? Who are ‘they’?"

"Goddard Futuristics. They're hiding stuff from us. Imani didn't steal Elpis to reverse-engineer her; they needed an AI to decrypt files that have fallen into their hands."

"Oh? They just- found them, like that?"

"I guess they stole those, too," Alana says dryly. "Does it really matter, at that point?" Daniel has to concede it really doesn't, and he shrugs. Alana relaxes minutely, and starts fiddling with the edge of his shirt. "Anyway, Goddard- there's more to their research than just green energy and space travel. Did you ever wonder why they exclusively recruit people who are aware of their powers - and ready to use them?"

Daniel doesn't answer right away; it hadn't even occurred to him that everyone around him seemed to be weirdly comfortable with having abilities the rest of the population would probably spend their entire existence ignoring. Every single person he'd met at Goddard knew of the little something that made everyone special. It was just a part of their daily life.

(Daniel might have forgotten what if feels like not to be surrounded with people who don't think bad things happen around him specifically simply because he's a bad person.)

"So?" he shrugs. "You can't blame them for gathering people who might feel like freaks otherwise."

She presses her forehead against his shoulder, as if to say: "you got a point", or: "I'm sorry." Instead of that, though, she huffs.

"Sure. Yeah. It's still… a bit suspicious, right? What do they have to win by keeping so many powerful people in such close quarters? It's like- it's like keeping too much C4 in a broom closet. It might not blow up, but when it does-"

"Yeah, I get the picture," Daniel cuts her off, because he knows exactly what happens if you keep explosive people around explosive items. Alana sighs.

"Yes. Sorry. It's just- it feels like someone is  _ collecting _ us. I think it's important that the people who have abilities strong enough to be noticeable learn how to control them, but Elpis thinks - that is, she _ knows _ , because she read it in the files she managed to decrypt - she knows someone at Goddard is trying to find a way to manipulate powers."

"And it's a bad thing?"

Alana pauses. Then asks, voice heavy with doubt:

"You think it would be a good thing? We already have enough tools to hurt each other. Why would artificially beefing up our powers be a good thing? Imagine having to take down a telekinetic who can do more than just make a pen fly, or a telepath who can put thoughts into your brain instead of just reading them?"

"Hmm. We already have Kepler."

"Yeah, well. Imagine having to take down Kepler, without being able to resist any of his orders."

There's a pause, during which Daniel very carefully doesn't say anything, and then Alana says:

"I mean, it's not like you can go against anything he says now."

Alana's tone is a bit wary, the way it is every time she touches the subject of Daniel's relationship with their boss, but there's a teasing edge to it too, and Daniel smiles.

"Hey, it's not my fault you're not into guys," he jokes. "You'd get it, otherwise."

Alana snorts. "Yeah, sure." She sobers up quickly though, and her hand against Daniel's stomach starts worrying at his t-shirt again. "Anyway. We should seek control, not augmentation. Not the way they want to do it. It sounds like a recipe for disaster."

"What do you wanna do about it? Stop them?"

"I wouldn't know where to start," Alana signs. "I- I guess I'm just going to stay on the lookout for now on. Stay sharp. Not trust anyone." Her arm tightens around him, and she adds quietly: "Except for you."

Alana explicitly putting that much trust in him never fail to make warmth bloom into his chest - so similar to the heat of his ability, while simultaneously being its polar opposite: affection instead of anger, forgiveness instead of resentment. He covers her hand with his own and squeezes it as a silent promise, and Alana cuddles up closer to him. He can tell she's still worried, but soon her breathing evens out and her arm around his waist becomes heavy and limp.

It doesn't take long for Daniel to fall asleep after that.

 

(When he wakes up, six short hours later, the spot beside him is empty and cold. He finds Alana in the living room, looking pale and dead tired, mechanically typing on her laptop. "I couldn't sleep," she says. He sighs, pats her shoulder in passing, and goes to brew a large pot of coffee.)

 

"As much as it pains me to say it, field work is over for us for a while."

Daniel perks up from his half-slumped position against the table. On his right, Maxwell doesn't give any sign she's even heard Kepler, busy as she is draining a cup of black coffee with enough sugar in it to pass for molasses. Kepler is pacing in front of them, brows furrowed, tapping insistently on a tablet, and Daniel takes it upon himself to participate to the conversation.

"Sir?" he asks without much conviction, and Kepler glares at him.

"I said, we're not going anywhere for the foreseeable future. We're being assigned to the PL lab a couple of miles north of HQ - something about a new program that needs all the workforce Goddard can spare on other projects. We're asked to attend the official launch of the program this afternoon."

"This afternoon?" Maxwell says - slurs, even - as she runs a hand down her face. "Couldn't they have mentioned this earlier?"

Kepler's bad mood zooms in on Maxwell, and she shrinks a bit on her chair when she realizes what her groggy state has made her say.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear you complaining, Doctor Maxwell," he bites back, before looking down on his tablet, glaring at it like it personally offended him. "But to answer your question - no. It's called  _ need to know _ , you might have heard of it."

Suddenly, the reason of their commanding officer's stormy mood becomes clearer. Warren Kepler is all about withholding information from his own squad until the moment he judges they can't go without, but he really dislikes being subjected to the same treatment. It's -  _ cute _ , in a way, Daniel thinks distractedly, and it probably wouldn't be as endearing if he ignored his massive crush on Kepler for a second, but what can he do.

"Did they say anything about what that program consists of?" he ventures to ask, although he already knows the answer.

"No." Of course. "We'll find out at three this afternoon. Gather your tools and pack your equipment in case they need firepower on top of experts." Why would they need firepower in a Goddard-owned lab in the middle of Florida? "Rendezvous in the garage in-" he quickly looks down on his watch, "- two hours. Don't forget anything. You're dismissed."

Jacobi and Maxwell pick up their stuff before slinking out of Kepler's office, leaving him staring daggers at the offending tablet. Maxwell takes the direction of the AI labs, and Jacobi automatically falls into step beside her.

"Someone got their panties in a bunch," he remarks to launch the conversation - but not before making sure there's a few corridors between them and Kepler. Maxwell blinks owlishly at him, and knocks back the rest of her sludge-coffee.

"He does hate, uh, being kept out of the loop," she answers, pinching at the bridge of her nose. There are dark bruises under her bloodshot eyes, more impressive than anything he'd ever seen as a result of her bouts of insomnia. He'd tried to convince her to get a decent cycle of sleep the previous night, going as far as setting alarms for himself to check on her - but more often than not, he'd found her up again, scouring the less-legal parts of Web, as well as some conspiracy theories forums, for a sign of someone else digging in Goddard's trash.

She can't have had more than a couple of hours of sleep at a time over the past seventy-two hours. The chew toy around her wrist is a bit worse for wear, and there's a stuttering to her movements which occurs every time she's sleep-deprived, making her look like a very realistic android.

Jacobi grabs her elbow when she starts drifting a bit too close to the wall, and she jumps minutely, her eyes snapping on him.

"Hey," he says softly, tugging her to a stop. "You okay?"

Maxwell breathes in and out a few times, her eyes screwed shut.

"Yeah. Yes," she says. Then, after a pause: "Maybe. I don't know."

"You should rest for a bit. Lemme do the packing. You can just- you still have that examination table in your lab, right?" Maxwell nods. "You can lie there and order me around to pack up your stuff, alright?"

"Daniel-" Maxwell starts, and she must be really out of it to be using his first name at work. "I really appreciate it, but you should go do your own preparations. I'm going to be fine, just - some more coffee, and I'll be good to go."

"Oh, no, no." Jacobi grabs the empty cup out of her unresisting hand. "No more coffee. No energy drinks, either," he adds quickly, and Maxwell pouts.

"Alright,  _ Dad. _ Geez, you never let me do anything fun."

"It's for your own good,  _ honey. _ " He nudges her forward, and when they start walking again Maxwell moves a bit more like an actual human being, and less like a machine.

They come to a stop in front of Maxwell's lab, and she fumbles with her key card a second before managing to slide it into the lock. She then turns to Jacobi, and he silently hands her back her mug.

"If you pour a drop of coffee in there, I'll know it," he jokes, and Maxwell snorts before taking the cup from him. "You sure you're gonna be alright?"

Maxwell rolls her eyes, and she starts pushing open the door of her lab with her back.

"I have to say goodbye to everyone. Trust me, it's not going to be pretty. So many tears and cries and-"

"Everyone? Oh, you mean-"

"Iapetus and Leto and Menoetius. Come on, Jacobi, keep up."

He laughs, and raises his hands in appeasement.

"Yeah, of course, my bad. I'll let you kiss your kids goodbye."

Maxwell smiles tiredly as the lights of the lab turn on behind her back, tracing brightly the edge of her silhouette.

"Thanks, Jacobi. See you later."

Then she's gone. After a few seconds, Jacobi sighs, turns away and leaves.


End file.
